This thread is a how-to for installing NetBSD on a laptop. Since each person has a different model, I am hoping that others will likewise add to this thread.

I have a Sony Vaio PCG-GRZ530 and wanted to Run Linux on it. Modern distributions require large amounts of memory and for acpi to be added to the command line. Knoppix worked and Slax worked but, these are not for normal use. I installed Fedora Core 6 successfully but had some time for acpi to start working.
What was I to do? My next decision was for FreeBSD to be used. It would have been great but for a problem; laptop support for FreeBSD isn't exactly an easy task. I looked for a Live CD to use and came across NetBSD Live first. It worked with either the acpi kernel or laptop kernel but not both.
Getting a little frustrated, I asked for other suggestions. I was pointed to Jibbed and tried it out. It worked and I decided to install NetBSD 5.0 to the flat box. So, in all due respect, here goes.
Resize your drive with knoppix. You will need about 15G. The last part of the drive is a primary partition which is quite small in size . First resize the extended partition and save. Reboot the box and resize the the last part to fill the area between the new extended partition size and the beginning of the tail partition. Save it as whatever format it was in.

Knoppix qtparted quick howto
Boot knoppix on the laptop. When the gui comes up, click on the K on the bottom corner. Go to control center. Choose peripherals. Select keyboard. Set the repeat rate at 10.0 per second and save. Close the window.
Select the terminal icon on the bottom. Let it open and type in "sudo su" minus the quotation marks. When prompted with the pound sign, type in "qtparted" sans marks and hit enter. Select the drive and resize with the arrow. Use the file and edit keys to save the changes. Exit from the interface after changes have been applied. Close the terminal window and reboot.
Upon rebooting, do the same method above to resize the tail partition. Exit.End of Knoppix quick how-to

Place the NetBSD CD in the drive and boot. You'll need another computer with access to the NetBSD guide for the rest of this or a copy of the guide to follow. Here is a quick rundown.

Be sure that the box is connected to the internet through the ethernet port. Follow chapter three and delete the last partition then format it as ffs and select it for /.
Install and reboot.
Use adduser to give yourself a normal account to work with. Configure X with "Xorg -config" as root. You'll need to look up the values for alloted RAM for video, max resolution, horizontal and vertical values. Use PC105 as the default layout. The mouse is ws type. If there is trouble with X. Reboot the box with the Jibbed CD in it and write down the values you are missing from X. Reboot and adjust if necessary.
Follow chapter 5 of the guide and install the current pkgsrc tree. I suggest moving the tar file to /usr and then extracting it as root. Remove the tar file completely after extracting. Each file or suite need to be installed with "make update."
I do not suggest heavy gui's such as KDE or Gnome for normal use. There are apps in each which are great but you can access them through the menu or terminal.
I'll follow up later here with other links that helped me.